Posted on 05/01/2008 3:09:53 PM PDT by sitetest
It was from an obsessive Darwin-defender that I learned of the Anti-Defamation League's attack on the theatrical documentary Expelled, for "misappropriat[ing] the Holocaust." This guy is constantly emailing me. He warned that the ADL had just "issued a terse press release today condemning the equation of ‘Darwinism' with Nazism in Expelled. How can you call yourself a religious Jew and still believe in such Fundamentalist Protestant Christian nonsense like Intelligent Design?"
I thanked my email correspondent for a good laugh. The idea that, having defended Expelled's thesis concerning Hitler's intellectual debt to Charles Darwin, I would now feel chastised and repentant because of a statement from the ADL, an organization for which I have not a feather's weight of respect! This was rich stuff.
Just to be clear, however: Expelled doesn't equate Darwinism and Hitler. That basic point was also missed by Professor Sahotra Sarkar, who published a confused attack piece on me here on Jewcy. Sarkar attributed to me the view, "If you believe in the theory of evolution, you are an anti-Semite" -- something that, obviously, I would have to be a fool to write or believe.
Dealing primarily with the academic suppression of Darwin-doubting scientists on campuses around the country, Expelled only spends about 10 minutes on the Hitler-Darwin connection. But it draws upon a solid, mainstream body of scholarship by the chief Hitler biographers and others.
Undeterred, the ADL wailed that "Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people and Darwin and evolutionary theory cannot explain Hitler's genocidal madness."
Much the same view has been propounded elsewhere. Once again here at Jewcy, Jay Michaelson seemed to argue that all science is by definition value-neutral: "Last I checked, Hitler also made use of automobiles. Indeed, he based a lot of ideas on militarism and machines; does that mean technology is morally wrong? Should you turn off your computer right now?"
No, Jay, there are obvious differences between Darwinian theory and auto and computer technology. Most important, the latter make no claims to answering ultimate questions, like how life originated, from which ethical corollaries are naturally drawn.
Auto and computer technology are also proved reliable every day by our experience. But no one has ever reported seeing a species originate in the manner described in Darwin's Origin of Species - not now, not in the fossil record, not ever.
More interesting than these observations is the hypocrisy of the ADL's outburst: "Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan."
It's funny how when the subject of conversation is Darwinism, then Hitler needed no one particular inspiration. But when the conversation shifts from Darwinism to - oh, I don't know - Christianity? Ah, then suddenly the genealogy of Nazism becomes eminently traceable.
One of the ADL's main fundraising technique has long been to scare Jews by demonizing Christianity. The group accordingly isn't shy about tracing the genealogy of the Holocaust back to the New Testament. In an essay on the 40th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, for example, Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, director of interfaith affairs wrote:
"The anti-Judaism that begins in the New Testament was transformed through the admixture of political, economic and sociological prejudice into the anti-Semitism of modernity. This reached its ugly and inhuman nadir during World War II with Hitler's Final Solution for the Jewish people."
Blaming the earliest Christian writings for setting off a chain of influences resulting in the Holocaust evokes little outrage in the liberal Jewish community. Visitors to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, for instance, are greeted by a film, Anti-Semitism, purporting to uncover the "religious root of this phenomenon, the pervasive anti-Jewish teachings that evolved from overly literal readings and misreadings of New Testament texts."
Yet when Hitler successfully sold his ideology of hate to the German people in his bestselling tract Mein Kampf, he phrased his argument not in Christian terms but in biological, Darwinian ones.
Ignoring Hitler's evolutionary rhetoric, of course, some commentators brandish a famous quote from the same book -- "by defending myself against the Jews, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." They don't realize that Hitler was referring not to the God of the Bible but to Nature and her iron laws, as his preceding sentence clearly indicates.
In a curious irony, the modern paperback edition of Mein Kampf, available in any Barnes & Noble, includes an Introduction by - guess who? None other than the ADL's national director, Abraham Foxman. Did he, I wonder, even read the book?
That is true, it was expressly in favor of the futuristic concepts of "German science".
"It is certainly true that the productivity of the soil can be increased within certain limits; but only within defined limits and not indefinitely. By increasing the productive powers of the soil it will be possible to balance the effect of a surplus birth-rate in Germany for a certain period of time, without running any danger of hunger. But we have to face the fact that the general standard of living is rising more quickly than even the birth rate. The requirements of food and clothing are becoming greater from year to year and are out of proportion to those of our ancestors of, let us say, a hundred years ago. It would, therefore, be a mistaken view that every increase in the productive powers of the soil will supply the requisite conditions for an increase in the population. No. That is true up to a certain point only, for at least a portion of the increased produce of the soil will be consumed by the margin of increased demands caused by the steady rise in the standard of living. But even if these demands were to be curtailed to the narrowest limits possible and if at the same time we were to use all our available energies in the intenser cultivation, we should here reach a definite limit which is conditioned by the inherent nature of the soil itself. No matter how industriously we may labour we cannot increase agricultural production beyond this limit. Therefore, though we may postpone the evil hour of distress for a certain time, it will arrive at last. The first phenomenon will be the recurrence of famine periods from time to time, after bad harvests, etc. The intervals between these famines will become shorter and shorter the more the population increases; and, finally, the famine times will disappear only in those rare years of plenty when the granaries are full. And a time will ultimately come when even in those years of plenty there will not be enough to go round; so that hunger will dog the footsteps of the nation. Nature must now step in once more and select those who are to survive, or else man will help himself by artificially preventing his own increase, with all the fatal consequences for the race and the species which have been already mentioned. It may be objected here that, in one form or another, this future is in store for all mankind and that the individual nation or race cannot escape the general fate. At first glance, that objection seems logical enough; but we have to take the following into account: The day will certainly come when the whole of mankind will be forced to check the augmentation of the human species, because there will be no further possibility of adjusting the productivity of the soil to the perpetual increase in the population. Nature must then be allowed to use her own methods or man may possibly take the task of regulation into his own hands and establish the necessary equilibrium by the application of better means than we have at our disposal to-day. But then it will be a problem for mankind as a whole, whereas now only those races have to suffer from want which no longer have the strength and daring to acquire sufficient soil to fulfil their needs. For, as things stand to-day, vast spaces still lie uncultivated all over the surface of the globe. Those spaces are only waiting for the ploughshare. And it is quite certain that Nature did not set those territories apart as the exclusive pastures of any one nation or race to be held unutilized in reserve for the future. Such land awaits the people who have the strength to acquire it and the diligence to cultivate it. Nature knows no political frontiers. She begins by establishing life on this globe and then watches the free play of forces. Those who show the greatest courage and industry are the children nearest to her heart and they will be granted the sovereign right of existence." - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
He didn't mentioned Darwin by name - Hitler rarely gave anybody else credit for idea - but evolution was absolutely central to his belief system. Here is a quote from Mein Kampf:
Such a dispensation of Nature is quite logical. Every crossing between two breeds which are not quite equal results in a product which holds an intermediate place between the levels of the two parents. This means that the offspring will indeed be superior to the parent which stands in the biologically lower order of being, but not so high as the higher parent. For this reason it must eventually succumb in any struggle against the higher species. Such mating contradicts the will of Nature towards the selective improvements of life in general. The favourable preliminary to this improvement is not to mate individuals of higher and lower orders of being but rather to allow the complete triumph of the higher order. The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature. Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind; for if such a law did not direct the process of evolution then the higher development of organic life would not be conceivable at all.It goes on and on like this. Clearly this is a perversion of Darwinism even though Hitler doesn't explicitly name Darwin.
The Missing Theory Link Between Darwinism and Nazism is a theory called Social Darwinism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_darwinism
A typical European History course includes readings and discussion on the connection between the theory of Darwinism and Herbert Spensor’s theory of Social Darwinism; published in the 19th-century. The Eugenics movement was also inspired by Darwinism.
Social Darwinism is described in text books as an idea incorporated into Europe’s 19th-century claim to racial superiority and the right to colonize much of the world.
Note that not only Germans but much of Western Europe promoted the idea of racial superiority in relation to Africa, Asia and so forth. So, this concept was ALREADY embedded in German culture BEFORE Nazism. Nevertheless, the Nazis definitely absorbed this cultural myth, and promoted this belief as part of their Aryan superman myth. In other words, they were able to capitalize on an existing belief.
Does that mean that Hitler was inspired by Darwin? That depends on whether you think that Darwin is responsible for Spensor’s twist on his theory, and any other applications of the natural selection theory.
My main point is that this argument is an ongoing legitimate discussion in history departments. Why else would it be addressed in major textbooks? I’ve never heard it connected to some form of anti-semitism but rather to “European jingoism”. If historians trash anyone for racism or the Holocaust; it’s the Europeans. (blame the white guys, right?)
rags
I also have some university links on Spensor if you want to read something other than wikipedia.
This has to do with breeding and is as old as mankind. Plato's republic:
The method whereby this selective breeding will be conducted, Socrates explains, is that at designated calendar times and at the most appropriate periods of their sexual activity and fertility, the men and women of this class will be brought together in “marriage festivals,” but they will not be permitted the free choice of sexual partners. Rather, they will be “taught” that the older rulers have drawn all pairs of sexual partners by blind lot, whereas in fact the rulers will have paired the sexual partners by careful selection so as to ensure the success of the eugenic method the rulers have adopted.
As for the children so produced, they will have to be raised communally and provided for by citizens designated as nurses. Furthermore, the children are not to be permitted to recognize their birth parents; the children are not to be permitted to develop “old time” family loyalties; in fact, the birth mothers may be at times prohibited from nursing their children, who will be provided with wet-nurses for their needs.
This plan was implemented to a tee. SS officers were bred with select "ladies" and their children were raised in communes
"The pacifist-humanitarian idea may indeed become an excellent one when the most superior type of manhood will have succeeded in subjugating the world to such an extent that this type is then sole master of the earth. This idea could have an injurious effect only in the measure according to which its application would become difficult and finally impossible. So, first of all, the fight and then pacifism. If the case were different it would mean that mankind has already passed the zenith of its development, and accordingly the end would not be the supremacy of some moral ideal but degeneration into barbarism and consequent chaos. People may laugh at this statement; but our planet has been moving through the spaces of ether for millions and millions of years, uninhabited by men, and at some future date may easily begin to do so again--if men should forget that wherever they have reached a superior level of existence, it was not the result of following the ideas of crazy visionaries but by acknowledging and rigorously observing the iron laws of Nature." - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
He posted pics which showed among others Hitler standing i front of a church. I guess if I searched heard enough I could find a pic of Hitler in front of a synagogue and "prove" he was a Jew.
Secondly, it was easy for Hitler to whip up resentment against Jews because many Germans blamed them for the corruption and misery Wiemar govt. Hitler exploited this.
You shouldn't have to rely on anti-Catholic propaganda to prove your point, but I realize that anti-Christianity is at the root of the more fundamental Darwinists.
Like Anne Coulter and her book, I suspect that all this bra knotting over Ben's movie is much ado about nothing.
And, since I have a life, I am now going out for garlic wings.
Darwinism was a central, guiding principle of Nazi ideology, especially of Hitler’s own world view. Richard Evans, historian at Cambridge University, has explained, "The real core of Nazi beliefs lay in the faith Hitler proclaimed in his speech of September 1938 in science—a Nazi view of science—as the basis for action. Science demanded the furtherance of the interests not of God but of the human race, and above all the German race and its future in a world ruled by ineluctable laws of Darwinian competition between races and between individuals." This is not a controversial claim by anti-evolutionists, but it is commonly recognized by scholars who study Nazism.
He posted many pictures including Catholic bishops giving the Nazi Salute.
Science is a lesser thing than Faith, but it brags alot.
Science is a lesser thing than Faith, but it brags alot.
Keep saying it and keep thinking it, but Hitler NEVER mentioned Darwin, he did mention the Creator. You post what other people said. I post what Hitler said. Socrates invented the ‘eugenics” that Hitler revered.
"What seems an obstacle to many persons is really a preliminary condition of our victory. Just because our task is so great and because so many difficulties have to be overcome, the highest probability is that only the best kind of protagonists will join our ranks. This selection is the guarantee of our success. Nature generally takes certain measures to correct the effect which racial mixture produces in life. She is not much in favour of the mongrel. The later products of cross-breeding have to suffer bitterly, especially the third, fourth and fifth generations. Not only are they deprived of the higher qualities that belonged to the parents who participated in the first mixture, but they also lack definite will-power and vigorous vital energies owing to the lack of harmony in the quality of their blood. At all critical moments in which a person of pure racial blood makes correct decisions, that is to say, decisions that are coherent and uniform, the person of mixed blood will become confused and take measures that are incoherent. Hence we see that a person of mixed blood is not only relatively inferior to a person of pure blood, but is also doomed to become extinct more rapidly. In innumerable cases wherein the pure race holds its ground the mongrel breaks down. Therein we witness the corrective provision which Nature adopts. She restricts the possibilities of procreation, thus impeding the fertility of cross-breeds and bringing them to extinction." - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
“Keep saying it and keep thinking it, but Hitler NEVER mentioned Darwin”
What do you think Hitler is referring to when he talks about “selection.”
Selection is the crown jewel in Darwinian science, so of course Hitler was talking about Darwinism, if not Darwin himself.
Breathtaking ignorance.
Hitler had a plan for "his own Chirstianity".
July 6, 1945 - "The Nazi Master Plan: The Persecution of the Christian Churches"
Ignorance can be cured, stupidity is forever.
"Those who are physically and mentally unhealthy and unfit must not perpetuate their own suffering in the bodies of their children. From the educational point of view there is here a huge task for the People's State to accomplish. But in a future era this work will appear greater and more significant than the victorious wars of our present bourgeois epoch. Through educational means the State must teach individuals that illness is not a disgrace but an unfortunate accident which has to be pitied, yet that it is a crime and a disgrace to make this affliction all the worse by passing on disease and defects to innocent creatures out of mere egotism." - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
And I posted a picture of Bill Clinton taking communion. So tell me, what do those pictures prove?
Again, breeding, Socrates not Darwin. Keep trying. Hitler NEVER mentioned Darwin.
That Clinton thinks he can use Christian theology to his advantage
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